


Filling in the Blanks

by ShaolinQueen



Category: True Detective
Genre: Angst, Drama, Episode Related, Episode: s01e08 Form and Void, Form and Void, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Drama, Season Finale, gap-filling story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-18 23:52:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShaolinQueen/pseuds/ShaolinQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Indistinct voices, neon lights, antiseptic, that incessant beeping, piercing pain. He feels fabric under his fingers, real fabric, sheets, a mattress, a bed.</i>
</p><p> <i>He woke up.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story happened because Rust Cohle and Marty Hart will always have my love and adoration, and also because I’ve watched _Form and Void_ and its 55 minutes of perfection more times than I’d like to admit. 
> 
> Once again, the biggest _thank you_ goes to **karategirl448** , because, beside tracking down all my mistakes, she also encouraged me in fleshing the original work out. So if you get to read 8 chapters instead of 4 it’s her fault ;P 
> 
> Let’s start then, and feel free to let me know what you think!

 

It's over.

He drops the gun and slides back supine, painstakingly slow; he feels like he's going to throw up if he moves an inch more than necessary.

He can hear death clearly now, all around them; it's a hollow sound, keen, it's the torment all those children, all those girls have suffered before realizing that the moment they let go they would finally be at peace. It's the anguish that precedes the look of acceptance he's seen in hundreds of pictures and it's heavy, it's squashing him to the ground.   

He hears Marty call his name and the morbid spell is broken. His ears hear actual sounds and his body feels actual feelings, it's not a synesthetic sensation anymore: his head is throbbing, sight fuzzy, and his arm is on fire, bleeding, probably broken, but that's nothing compared to his lower belly, which feels like it's being ripped open again and again. 

Fuck it. He's not going to die with a fucking knife in his gut. Fuck all medical advice about objects sticking out your body. Fuck them. 

Marty is close, his right hand almost touching the side of his head as Rust gingerly starts to pull the bloody thing out, bit by bit, as steady as he can manage. He tastes sparks of agony, red and white, and he hears himself emit some broken lament, a distant sound among the fog of pain which threatens to overwhelm him.  

Then he feels the blood, warm and sticky, oozing freely from the open gash. It’s soaking his shirt and trousers, the soil under his back. Some more is still dripping from his arm, crimson rivulets adorning the broken wing of his tattoo. Behind him, Marty curses in alarm and Rust senses every drop of despair and hopelessness exuding from his partner.

He's ready to leave, he's ready to _welcome_ death, he has known from the start, maybe even sought it, but for a second he feels bad for Marty, the closest person he has, because he doesn't deserve to see that, let alone to even consider he's somehow guilty of anything.

"Ah, he cut me pretty good, Marty," he admits almost apologetically.  _There's nothing you can do, nothing you could have done_. 

Marty doesn't seem to get it though and uselessly tries to soak some blood up from Rust’s abdomen with his handkerchief, mumbling encouragements neither of them believe. "No, Rust. It ain't bad, it ain't bad."

Rust listens to him mumbling things and moving about. He closes his eyes though; it's not worth the effort to keep them open, not when his vision is turning mostly grey in the first place, not when he's finally managing to quench his overworking senses. 

Then his head is being gingerly lifted to rest on Marty's thigh. Maybe it’s because of the blood loss, he  _is_  very lightheaded at this point, but the gesture feels alien and Rust distantly realizes that it has been an awful while since the last time he's had any kind of human contact.

Hell, it probably was Marty's doing the last time around too, only he had been punching his face bloody after tackling him on the tarmac. 

Human contact or not, which admittedly feels oddly reassuring, he can't tell if he's more comfortable like that. Rust can't tell hardly anything by now because even pain is fading, along with his last trace of lucidity.

 He's almost startled when the sky suddenly sparkles with light.

Marty starts crying for help, while Rust decides it's finally safe to embrace darkness. 


	2. 2a

Warm. Peace. Love.

He's drifting in Her Love, he's so deep in there, so fully enclosed, it's astonishingly vast, and he's in awe and he can't believe she's with him again, he can't believe he's able to feel her again, feel  _them_  in such a complete and ultimate way there's not even room to think he doesn't deserve every droplet of It.

He greedily drinks then, he embraces It with eagerness and complete abandon and It becomes thicker, deeper, It's the final stop, the highest peak. There's silence.

Then suddenly he's thrown inside a broken TV, it's on and off, mute and loud. It works by its own accord, there are flashes, and more flashes.

Darkness again. Silence. Noise.

Cold. Warm. Cold. Hot. Hot. He's hot, then cold, freezing.

Flashes again, cold, noises. He's feeling ordinary sensations, he  _can't_  be feeling  _ordinary sensations_ , he's resurfacing and no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,  _NO_.

Then he's afloat: a glimmer of light, shivers, beeping. There are neon lights, there's sweat, pain, incessant beeping. Approaching steps.

Realization, then despair, and he’s suffocating, he's choking, drowning.

_He hopes to_.

There's a penlight pointed at his eye, gloved hands on his face. People are calling his name, more gloved hands on his body. Pain. Pain in his head, pain in his belly.

Indistinct voices, neon lights, antiseptic, that incessant beeping, piercing pain. He feels fabric under his fingers, real fabric, sheets, a mattress, a bed.

He's awake,  _he's fucking awake_.

The beeping is louder now, and he's sweating and shivering. He feels almost coherent, and he flinches when a warm hand cups his face. No gloves, and it's familiar. "Rust."

Familiar fingers, familiar voice, familiar touch. "Rust, relax, it's over, you're okay, Marty's okay. You're both safe."

Laurie. 

Laurie is stroking his cheek lightly with her thumb, she looks worried and two nurses are fretting around them, probably giving him more drugs, because pain is less and less intrusive by the second.

He doesn't care if they're  _okay_  though, he doesn't care if Laurie is worried, he doesn't want to hear her, he doesn't want to see her, he doesn't want to hear or see anyone, he doesn't want to relax, he  _can't_  relax, because the fact that  _It_ 's over is not a good thing, the fact that he's just resurfaced is a fucking _tragedy_ and it's unfair, so royally and unbelievably unfair he just wants Sophia's love back, he just wants to go back. 

Rust recoils from Laurie’s touch, hoping he can sink down again, go under, hoping that he would stop feeling ordinary things, hoping he would drown in the beautiful darkness again. But the more he understands the reality of the darkness he’s just deserted, the more he understands his deliberate choice to embrace it, the more he grasps that lingering feeling of pure and perfect Love, the more he feels Its absence, Its agonizing unattainableness…

He knows he can't go back, he's sure as hell that he'll wake up again and again after this, as he's sure, without any doubt, that the Love is gone, because he abandoned it.

Damn him, but he did.  _He did_.

And Rust is left with Its lingering sensation only, it's excruciating and he deserves every bit of pain. And more. The monitor at his side is still beeping, people are still talking.

He shuts them out and faces the wall at his side, a single tear running down his cheek.

He closes his eyes in defeat and an unasked question dies in his mouth:  _Why?_


	3. 2b

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, sorry, still no Marty in sight! But I promise he’ll be around soon, you know he will ;)
> 
> Thank you again for being here!

 

He spends days dwelling on it.

Minutes, hours, every fucking single second he's laying awake on that bed. 

And the survival instinct is such a fascinating reaction, he reckons, it can be a chance, a possibility, a door ajar enough for you to sneak back to the other side.

And yet Rust feels like he's been damned. Again. He feels like he has fucked up, so enormously so, just for being fucking sentient meat with a fucking survival instinct.

The inbred struggle to survive makes you do things you couldn't have possibly imagined, like opening your eyes against your deepest and most craved desire. Thus you feel the darkness, as alluring as you'd have never dreamed to conceive it, the same darkness you’ve willingly embraced, crumbling around you, inexorably. 

You feel your daughter's Love, the most important part of that darkness, the reason you've embraced it in the first place, slipping away with the last remains of oblivion. 

And your definitions feel real again: they’re tangible, corporeal,  _human_ , and you can’t be anything but sure of it because that twinge that makes you gasp, along with white lights and the smell of antiseptic, painfully underline it.

You open your eyes every fucking time you wake up and you don't move a muscle, because it fucking hurts and your survival instinct reminds you that moving would only tear your body apart.

But you do want to tear yourself apart, you  _feel_  torn apart and you want to thrash around and scream and stab your own heart and fucking die.

That’s what he thinks about every time he’s not drugged enough to dazedly float in his dreams. That’s what he should do, even if the only object available to stab himself with nowadays is a bloody pen.

Rust demands to listen to the news instead, against doctor’s orders, and besides that he pretty much ignores everybody. He doesn't care if he's uncomfortable or in pain, or about the string of "can you follow the light or move your fingers and do you need anything" questions. 

He relishes the drugs they give him at least; he sleeps that heavy induced sleep they provide, he dreams and detachedly blames himself for failing to identify the Spaghetti Monster, back in 1995. 

He tries to focus solely on this umpteenth, particular failure, on the fact that they didn't get them all, and it fucking angers him and it's frustrating, because they probably never will. The Tuttle name has been cleared.

He focuses on all these things because, frankly, even anger and frustration feel better than the constant reminder that he has woken up,  _he fucking woke up_ , leaving Sophia’s Love behind.

When nighttime comes he watches the sky in front of him, and there's nothing capable of distracting him from those damned stars, mocking him. It's the oldest story, he realizes, it has always been, and why,  _why_ , couldn't the dark have won the only time  _he_ fucking needed it? 

But apparently it wasn't time for darkness just yet and his  _programming_  has once again represented his inescapable curse. His constitution for suicide hasn’t changed, not even after all these years, maybe especially after all these years.

Goddamn human consciousness, though.

And Rust recognizes this bitterness, the familiar fury and desolation that started after his daughter's death, the same acrimony and disbelief that returned into full force in 2002, after finding out that The Yellow King was still around and killing. 

And after all this time he's more restless than ever, and pathetic, because he can’t even move without  _sweating_  pain, let alone leave the bloody hospital.

And because he isn't even  _supposed_   _to be there_ , for fuck's sake, survival instinct be damned.


	4. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marty to the rescue! And they're finally stuck together.
> 
> And thank you, always!

 

Rust is startled when he realizes that one of his bouts of induced sleep has just been interrupted by Marty, loudly slurping some frozen shit no less.

He feels trapped, stuck in that bed with no way out and he can't find a logical reason that would bring Marty to see him, which inevitably leads to one of those defensive/aggressive exchanges of theirs.  

But Marty is not impressed by his antics anymore and he’s sucking from that damn straw like he really doesn’t have a care in the world, so Rust finally gives up. He ends up venting about Errol Childress and the fact that they  _didn’t get ‘em all_. He can’t help but squirm in the bed, his breathing quickens but Marty’s right, they  _ain’t gonna get ‘em all_. And they did get their closure, they paid their debt.

But no,  _that_  is not what’s  _bugging_  him, not the main thing, at least. He’s not ready to talk about  _that Moment_  though, maybe he’ll never be, so he simply tells Marty what he has been repeating himself for days now:  _I’m not supposed to be here_.

In return Marty promises to visit him the next day as well. And Rust still doesn’t get why he should stop by again; their debt is paid, or Marty clearly thinks so. Didn’t he tell him, not so long before, that he would rather expedite Rust’s death than prevent him from drowning?

But when he asks for an explanation Marty looks at him like Rust has grown another head, then shakes his own head lightly and leaves him with something familiar and something unexpected.

And Rust is exhausted and in pain, he feels drained as he watches Mary wheel back to his room, and he wonders how an encounter which has just ended with a mutual bird salute could have possibly made him feel better.

Maybe because Marty is right, Rust thinks again. But he already knew that. Rust has known from the start they would have never eradicate the entire weed, it wasn’t their mission, he probably knew before Marty. So what’s the difference between them now?

Denial, once again.

He might be still drugged and dazed but the answer comes almost immediately. Only this time he’s the one avoiding reality, while Marty has accepted it, has accepted his own limits and the limits of the world he walks on.

Marty has accepted Rust, his quirks and philosophical revelations, his misanthropy and his defensiveness, to the point to find it familiar, to find  _him_  familiar. 

_Don’t ever change, man_.

He thinks about the previous years in Alaska, about the slow, painstaking process, beer after beer, job after job,   finally bringing him back to Louisiana.

He thinks about himself, how he has changed, evolved, he thinks howhe returned less angry, less harsh, yet more resolute and obsessed with the case than before.

He thinks about reconnecting with Marty, who's evolved himself, and about the fact that for some time, during the new investigation, they've walked side by side, sharing the path towards _Carcosa_ , towards closure, evolving together.

Then, surprisingly enough, he considers that he's the one who has fallen behind, even refusing to move on, stubbornly wallowing in the grief of what he's lost after waking up from his coma.

And he's not like that, Rust can't recognizes himself, because he has always been focused on his past, that serving as self-awareness and yet, at the same time, he has always moved on, that serving as self-preservation and self-improvement instead.

So maybe it's time to fucking finally move on and _reconcile_ his nature,  as he has already done in the past, accepting that he’s not under anymore and he most likely won’t be for a while. 

Rust can’t forget the Love he felt back then, and he won't, it's a torture he's willing to endure, once again in his life, because it's agonizing and reassuring at the same time, it's his self-awareness and he needs it. 

But he won't get stuck on that grief either, because maybe the thought that sooner or later he'll end up there again is enough for now. 

It's paradoxical that he reaches this conclusion thanks to someone who has spent many years living and thriving in denial, it's paradoxical that Marty has moved on sooner than Rust, giving him lessons about it to boot, and yet, Marty and him, Hart and Cohle, have always been a gigantically paradoxical combination, so it sounds about right too. 

That being so, he can also accept that they're friends now, even though he barely remembers what that implies.

Even though it means Marty has been more mature than him. And damn, he's losing his touch. 


	5. 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this is when I started to speculate and invent. I hope you enjoy!

 

Marty keeps his word and the following day wheels his way in just as the nurse is hastily exiting his room.

Rust adjusts in the bed and regards him, not really surprised, and yet he was unsure his friend was going to show up at all till the moment he passes the threshold.

“What the hell were you telling her?” Marty asks without preamble, pointing with his thumb at the figure now at the end of the corridor.

“What do you mean?” Rust asks, concealing his curiosity. Marty has just sounded matter-of-factly accusatory and that used to pique his interest.

 “I mean that she was wearing the same expression I’m sure I had the first time you started babbling about human consciousness or  _the_ _psycho’s fear_.”

He feels the side of his mouth threatening to curl up but Rust manages to keep a straight face as he replies in a deadpan manner. “She’s not familiar with Nietzsche’s vision of pain and I thought that, in her line of work, knowing some of it could be useful.”

“Bullshit, you were just trying to scare her off,” Marty counters back unimpressed, adopting the same manner.

Rust feigns to ponder on his answer, while shifting again in the goddamn bed. “Maybe.”

“Too bad I couldn’t follow her example myself, back then,” Marty muses pensively, scratching his chin.“Not that I didn’t contemplate kicking you out of the car, once or twice-” he concludes looking at Rust knowingly. He frowns and adds, without pausing, “aren’t you supposed to stay put?”

“Been stuck here almost two weeks. Fucking driving me crazy, Marty,” Rust retorts squirming more, then he winces at the familiar pain of pulled stitches.

Marty eyes him warningly but doesn’t miss a beat. “I reckon that ship has sailed, buddy,” he declares, sounding dramatic and fatalistic.

Rust flips him off but stops fidgeting.

* * *

 

Laurie, who's become head of Lafayette General- as Marty told him, visits him again one morning, the previous and only other time the moment he had exited the coma, probably because she asked to be notified, he realizes now that he’s lucid.

This time he’s not angry or desperate or confused and he’s probably touched that she still cares enough to pop in again. He also recognizes, not for the first time, how fucked up he was at the end of their relationship, how he must have hurt her. He’s sorry, in a way, but their exchange now is awkward and it’s okay if they don’t talk again.

Marty, on the other hand, visits him regularly, and it’s much easier with him, even though Rust is aware that there are days in which his friend probably wishes he had stayed in his own room, the same days in which Rust still wishes he had stayed under, in the blissful darkness.

He knows that Marty always notices when something is amiss, yet never asks. And Rust is grateful.

Sometimes, however, it’s just plain and simple frustration that makes him itchy, because Marty is always a step ahead of him in terms of recovery.

Rust knows his clinical case is far more complicated, not to mention they’re still fretting about his five-day coma and some goddamn internal damage they’ll need to fix with more surgeries. 

Nevertheless, he can’t help but feel restless all the same.

To prove his point, on the day he’s finally allowed to spend a couple of hours on a bloody armchair instead of the fucking bed,  _and how fucking merciful of them_ , Marty smugly waltzes in on his own legs, with no stupid wheelchair in tow and holding one of those frozen things of his.

 _And_ , to top it all, he even has the nerve to be wearing  _a t-shirt and fucking sweatpants_.

“Fuck you, Marty, and are you getting addicted to those shitty things?” he blurts out, throwing his friend a murderous look.

In return, Marty bursts into laughter and sits on his bed, chatting happily and sipping from his damn blue straw.

After a while though, Rust’s growing discomfort has almost escalated into pain, because  _sitting_  there fucking hurts, and not even Marty’s babbling is able to distract him anymore.

So, when they hear a light knock, Rust reluctantly looks forward to the bed transfer.

However, when they turn towards the door he is sure that Marty is surprised as himself to see Gilbough and Papania there.

He has already told them his version of the facts, and he knows Marty has filled in the blanks when all Rust was doing was shedding his own blood on the ground.

They’ve already given him a hint of an apology too, of which he hasn’t given a shit, because his job is done and even before accomplishing so, any benefit resulting from a talk with them ran out the moment he realized they had nothing that could help him with the case.

So basically he can't imagine what the hell are they doing there, but after a few awkward pleasantries, which of course he ignores without a second thought,  the mystery is solved: it turns out they’re there for a fucking commendation for both of them.

And there's no wonder that as soon as Rust detects the purpose of the visit he stops listening, shuts them out as he has done with any other insignificant person, with insignificant purpose, who has crossed the threshold of his room.  

He concentrates on his breathing then, because he's starting to feel a bit queasy and each heartbeat sends a throbbing twinge through his healing wound, still held together by a ridiculous number of staples.

He distantly perceives Marty’s tone, polite but cold at first, then hurried and dismissive. Rust guesses its abrupt change of modulation is due to his friend's annoyance at their presence but it turns out it's because he wants to talk to him instead.

“Rust, what’s wrong?” Marty sounds agitated, trying to get his attention with a hand on his shoulder. "Fuck, you’re pale as a ghost," he continues, but there's no need to be so upset, really, because Rust knows it's a side-effect of the drugs that are wearing off. 

“I think I need to lie down,” Rust explains with practical tone, bracing himself before starting to move.

“No shit, man,” Marty deadpans, and he does his best to help Rust rise from the armchair, that at least seem to facilitate suffering patients in this particular task. 

Marty's not at the top of his form either and he helps him maneuver onto the bed with a bit of difficulty. They both end up panting, and Rust feels like he's just run a fucking marathon. 

“Why the fuck didn’t you say something sooner? Shit, you’re insufferable,” Marty complains, as soon as he regains his breath. 

Rust watches him fumbling with the call button, then closes his eyes, still short of breath.

“They gone?” he asks after a second, realizing the room is awfully quiet, if not for his ragged breath. 

“Yes, idiot, they’re gone. I sent them off as soon as I realized you were bloody fainting on that thing,” Marty confirms pointing at the chair. Apparently he still has his panties in a twist and Rust feels a bit bad about it. He isn’t a fucking damsel in distress though.

“Fuck you, I wasn’t fainting,” hence he counters back, opening his eyes and sending Marty a withering glare. 

His former partner looks almost amused then and fuck if Rust knows what's that’s all about.

“Shut up and sleep," Marty nothing but orders him after that. "Nurse is on the way with the good drugs.”

Rust regards him suspiciously for a second, then decides to follow his advice; he's kinda getting used to it, after all.


	6. 5a

They've been stuck there for almost twenty days by now; Rust has gone under the knife two other times already for those internal tissue repairs, his third time around in the OR is hopefully the fucking last though.  

He's flipping through some shitty magazine at the moment –apparently the only reading material available in that forsaken place. Then again, it’s a courtesy of Nurse-Nietzsche, so Rust speculates that she’s probably enjoying her sweet revenge, after all the shit he has put her through.

He’s sitting by the window though, the afternoon sun is pleasant enough not to act too grumpy, and for the sake of it he wonders about the average IQ of readers _and_ authors of that rubbish.

However, his musing doesn’t last long and it’s not even that satisfactory, so he just throws the damn waste of paper on the small table in front of him in a huff.

Marty walks in just a few seconds later, holding a plastic bag and with a small hold-all on his shoulder. He's grinning from ear to ear and it's almost fucking contagious, so Rust can't really help the tiniest quirk of his mouth. 

"Going home, I see," he congratulates Marty, lightly gesturing towards the small baggage.

"About fucking time, yeah," his friend announces, relieved.

They discussed Marty's discharge a few days before, when the doctors started to mention it, yet Rust feels something at the pit of his stomach which can only be described as discontent, melancholy maybe. 

He's glad for Marty because he'll finally be out of that fucking place, and he's feeling more empathic towards a human being than he could have imagined only a few months before, but Rust can’t shake off the feeling that something is coming to an end and maybe it serves him right for getting used to it, whatever “it” is, so easily.

"Are you okay?" Marty asks with uncertainty in his voice.

Rust is brought out of his stupor but recovers quickly, coming up with a sassy reply, pleasing enough: "Yeah, man, I was just thinking what a lucky bastard you are. Who the fuck knows when _I_ 'll be able to leave this hell."

And sometimes it surprises him how easily they can slide on their usual, familiar bantering. Each day that passes, Rust understands Marty’s odd request more and more - _don’t ever change, man_ \- because he could ask just the same now, he just lacks Marty’s spontaneity.

"Never been too patient, have you?" Marty observes, all cheerful again. After that he sits on Rust’s bed and eyes him reproachfully, a trace of seriousness flashing through his eyes before he starts to speak: "You think of that next time, before getting yourself cut half open like that."

"Yeah, yeah." Rust dismisses the rebuke with a wave of his hand. He doesn’t need one of those bouts of _mother-fucking-hen_ , but shit, if he could use a cigarette.  

He rubs his fingers together, bare of the ever-present stick since what it feels like forever and gazes out of the window, where the sun is setting down in its pink and orange nuances.

Rust thinks for the umpteenth time about that moment, when he finally reached the heart of _Carcosa_ , and he can clearly recall each single detail: those entwined twigs, everywhere, those bodies, clothes, that altar, or throne, or whatever the fuck it was supposed to be. The _vortex_.

"My mind decided it was the right fucking moment for seeing things and that sick bastard took advantage of it," He explains suddenly, like he hasn’t been quiet for a couple of minutes, waving his hand close to his face.

"Shit, man," Marty says, a bit taken aback. He rubs his forehead worriedly, probably thinking about how close they got to both being fucking slaughtered like pigs by Errol Childress. 

"Well, fuck it. It ended as it had to," Rust asserts with finality, leaving no room for more shitty over-thinking on Marty’s part.

For himself, on the other hand, Rust knows it wasn’t the ending he predicted, but Marty doesn't need to hear his shit right now, not when he can’t help but regain his cheerfulness like he’s fucking 5 years old and the only missing thing in the picture is that shitty frozen thing he’s gotten addicted to.   

They keep chatting for a while. Rust doesn’t think that, starting tomorrow, Marty won’t visit again, and when Marty leaves, once and for all, he doesn’t watch him through the window.


	7. 5b

Marty doesn’t visit on the following day.

It’s okay, Rust reasons, he’s expected that and he can deal with it. 

Besides, even if his assumption is wrong, Marty probably has a million things to do, now that he’s out of here, Rust just hopes he’s taking it easy, instead of thinking that only people who’s been cut in the belly should do so, because although his injury has never been life-threatening, he’s had a bloody hatchet thrust into his chest, for fuck’s sake.

Since they got him off the heavy drugs, those that put you under no matter what, Rust has been dreaming a lot again: recent nightmares, like _Carcosa_ and hatchets in friends’ chests, and old ones, those with tricycles and green rooms. 

Sometimes he even dreams actual dreams, with distant, pleasant memories, and when he’s really lucky he dreams about that Love.   

The problem with the latter though is always the awaking part, especially when he opens his eyes to the defiant starry sky. 

He’s dozing off in the chair by the window when Nurse-Nietzsche startles him calling his name with her usual, practical tone. He vaguely notices that it’s pitch dark already, not many stars out there tonight, and he must have slept more than he intended because it looks late. 

His attention is back to Nurse-Nietzsche though, as she hands him a cell phone with an unreadable expression, announcing that there’s a call for him. 

He eyes the device quizzically as she waves it lightly in front of his face with an impatient gesture, then fear freezes the blood in his veins, because he simply assumes the worst.

He dreads to hear Maggie on the other end of the phone, upset and broken, yet always strong and considerate enough to let him know. He doesn’t want to hear that and it’s the most illogical thought he’s ever conceived but still, as he’s grabbing the stupid thing, his hand is trembling. 

Nurse-Nietzsche leaves the room muttering something about lack of boundaries and he finally brings it to his ear.

“Yeah.” That’s all he’s able to croak out, throat drier than the desert.

Then he hears Marty’s voice, sounding all sleepy and fucking disjointed, babbling about how he’s spent the best part of the day _and_ evening sleeping on the couch, how he doesn’t remember being so fucking tired before in his life, and about getting fucking old and how much that sucks. 

He rambles on about how he had to call Maggie, who wasn’t home at first, to get Nurse-Nietzsche’s personal number, because Rust doesn’t have a bloody cell phone and _you should really get one, man, because who knows what’s gonna happen these days, we live in the 21 st century, for Christ’s sake, everybody has a cell phone, no matter how shitty it is_.    

Rust pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling like he’s drunk an entire six-pack of Lone Star in less than fifteen minutes. 

Nevertheless, he listens to that mingled string of words and even manages to mumble in agreement in the right moments, when in truth, for the entire duration of the call, he’s thinking exclusively that he would probably trade a kid’s fucking puppy for half a drag of a cigarette.

Marty ends his soliloquy with the promise of bringing him some of his books in the following days, _so you won’t have to read those shitty gossip magazines anymore_ , and Rust’s just glad he’s already sitting, because he’s sure his knees would have buckled ten minutes of Marty’s nonsense ago.  

The line goes dead and he sits there, stares at Nurse-Nietzsche’s phone, feeling like a complete idiot for being so worried then so fucking _happy_ about a bloody call and feeling like a _major_ idiot for thinking that “something” would have come to an end just because they weren’t stuck in the same building anymore. 

Because Marty does keep dropping by, he does go to Rust’s shitty apartment to collect some of his books and manuals and he does bring them to him, just like he erratically told him on the phone.

There are no other bloody surgeries planned for him, no further exams or tests and, after a goddamn month, he finally feels like he's fucking healing and gaining some strength. 

So when Marty eventually agrees to bring him some coffee, acting all cloak and dagger and shit no less, Rust reckons it's his clue to ask for cigarettes, _at last_.


	8. 6

Marty remembered his request, actually granting his craving. He’s also arranged his accommodation and ride, once he’ll be free to leave the fucking hospital. A few days still sounds like too many to Rust, but at least he’s breathing fresh air at the moment and about to fill his lungs with “fresh” smoke.

But if he thought even for a second that the gift also marked the end of the mother-fucking-hen attitude, he realizes straightaway that he’d been dead wrong, because Marty won’t even let him push his own goddamn wheelchair.

Also, he’s pretty sure that the above-mentioned accommodation is none other than Marty’s house, strictly elected by the smartass in order to keep a close eye on him.

And Rust might be getting comfortable with all the friendship shit, but he’s not sure that he knows how to handle these new dynamics between them just yet.

He can deal with casual chats and more serious ones, he can deal with confessions and crazy late night phone calls, he can and will actively deal with the long list of favors he hopes he’ll soon be able to return, he can deal with the wit of a Tiffany packaging, and he can certainly reply as wittily. Maybe he can even deal with cohabitation, for a while.

But when Marty actually asks to  _talk_  to him, hesitant yet eager to be helpful, in any way, it’s like he manages to disintegrate the last debris of the wall that used to stand between him and Rust. A wall that Rust erects every fucking time he’s hurt or weak, a wall he learnt to build after his daughter’s death, the wall that has allowed him to survive all the fucking tragedies he’s been through, including waking up after having finally rejoined Sophia’s love.

Because Marty sounds so goddamn genuinely concerned Rust can taste it in his head, because his friend genuinely wants to hear what that  _something else_  that’s been haunting Rust’s head for weeks is, and they’re under the endless sky, which is particularly starry tonight and it’s like Rust can feel his body crushing under its pressure, like he’s crumbling himself, along with that fucking last wall Marty has just nullified.

And each word sends a painful twinge to his chest, but Rust finds he’s able to talk about his greatest loss after all, about Sophia’s Love, so vivid and tangible and his pop’s too, about willingly embracing darkness, about disappearing in That and then waking up, leaving all behind.

It’s draining, it’s more excruciating than any stab wound will ever be and he breaks down, utterly and uncontrollably, as he has done only one other time before in his life.

Then Marty grips his shoulder, and points at the stars, the  _mocking_  stars, and how fucking ironic is that.

_The dark has a lot more territory_ , his friend notices when Rust mentions that, in the end, everything can be related to the oldest story of all. And Rust can’t really disagree; darkness still occupies an awful amount of space.

But he also thinks about the Universe, its origins, he thinks about his life, how it really has been  _a circle of violence and degradation_ , then he thinks about Claire and Sophia, creatures that darkness tried to taint, but who will always remain pure light in his head.

He thinks about Marty and himself, how badly they’ve hurt each other in the past, how distant they’ve been for so many years, and yet how he’s come to share the most intimate experience of his life with him.

He also thinks that, thanks to them, the light has won a battle or two along the years: they have killed monsters, incarcerated their fair share of criminals and they’ve survived.

He fucking _woke up_.

And he’ll be damned but this particular victory of the light, the one he has spent the last weeks swearing at, doesn’t feel that horrible at this point, not when on the spur of the moment he’s decided to flee the fucking hospital with the complicity of a  _friend_ , and not when each step both hurts like a motherfucker and reminds him what friendship feels like.

Marty laughs when Rust points out his erroneous interpretation on the Dark vs. Light thing, and Rust can literally see every single particle of irony in all that, but he simply doesn’t mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that’s it. 
> 
> It’s long and dark and full of drama, and maybe I should have lightened things up a bit. Rust’s head is not the right place though, maybe, if inspiration strikes again, I should change POV!  
> I hope I haven’t bored or depressed you too much, I hope it was entertaining and I wish to thank each one of you: for reading, commenting, leaving kudos and supporting this work! 
> 
> Special thanks, once again, to **karategirl448** , because she’s the best, and much love also for **lockspur** , the most loyal reader! Thank you, girls, really ♥


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